The American Experiment

When trying to convey a sense of the United States in the quarter millennium since its founding, it is difficult to know where to start. But curators at The University of Texas at Austin at both the LBJ Presidential Library and Briscoe Center for American history have done an admirable job of this daunting task. The two entities have partnered to create a series of four exhibits that will rotate over the next six months. The first installment of "The American Experiment: Pursuing Our Purpose" opened June 2 and will remain up until July 9.

On the 10th floor of the LBJ Presidential Library, near the replica of the Oval Office, "The American Experiment" occupies a single, modest room. But its 10 glass cases hold documents of huge importance. These are on loan from both the National Archives and the Briscoe Center for American History next door. The exhibit series is called "an ongoing effort to define, challenge, and expand the meaning of democracy."

What is America? It is a place, of course, and the first document to greet visitors is the 1848 Treaty of Guadalupe Hidalgo, which not only ended the Mexican-American War but established the modern border with Mexico and added more than a half million square miles of territory to the U.S. all the way to the Pacific. A few feet away is the 1868 treasury note with which the U.S. bought Alaska from Russia for $7.2 million just 20 years later.

America is also a set of rights and ideals. The 15th Amendment to the Constitution, passed in 1869, granted African American men the right to vote. The museum's interpretive label says, "In retrospect, the 15th Amendment was in reality only another step in the struggle for equality that would continue for more than a century before African Americans could begin to participate fully in American public and civic life." As for ideals, we are also treated to the colorful and ornate deed to the Statue of Liberty.

America has always been a land of innovation and invention. In one large bound volume, we find the 1872 act establishing Yellowstone as the nation's - and the world's - first national park. Nearby, we see the 1916 act establishing the National Park Service and specifying the director's annual salary of $4,500.